“Poor Cousin Bronislaw,” Jake sighed, sadly shaking his head.

“But I thought Melly was the best.”

“She is. But so is Anwar. If anyone can sniff out her work, it’s him.”

“Then what do we do?” Vic asked.

“Can we bribe him?” Livy asked.

“We tried with Cousin Bronislaw. That was added to his federal charges.”

“Oh.”

“So what do you want to do, Livy?”

Never one for rash decisions, Livy was silent as she thought on that. After a bit, she said, “Let’s see how it plays out. We’re going through a third party anyway. If it blows up, we can clean up and be gone in less than thirty.”

“Should we tell Melly what’s going on?”

“She’s not even here,” Jocelyn replied to Jake’s question. “She went back to the City with Antonella. To meet up with her ‘boyfriend,’ ” she said with air quotes.

“Thousand bucks says she’s in jail by the end of the week,” Jake tossed out. Sadly no one took him up on it.

“Did you tell my mother all this?” Livy asked.

“And Uncle Bart.” Jocelyn shrugged. “They both said to come to you.”

Livy rolled her eyes. “I hope they don’t think this is some kind of training. I have no plans to join the family business because of this.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Jocelyn admitted. “Your father, your decisions. That’s how it works. Besides, you’ve become too much of a goody two-claws from hanging around those Jean-Louis Parkers. You’re very lucky we still allow you to call yourself a Kowalski.”

Livy snorted, returned to her ridiculous gaming. “As if I could be anything else.”

Dez stood behind the Kowalski contact handling the selling of the painting. She was fully aware this was illegal. Selling a painting she knew to be a forgery. Helping the Kowalskis lure a man to this country so they could kill another man in a foreign country . . .

She couldn’t even pretend this was kind of legal. It wasn’t. Not a little. Even if she wanted to bust the guy who was going to be evaluating the painting, she couldn’t do that, either.

And yet . . . Dez felt no guilt. She should. Before her life had changed to include a husband who could shift into a five-hundred-pound lion and a son who would one day be able to shift into a five-hundred-pound lion, she’d been a very clean cop. Something she’d been proud of.

But with life changes came moral changes sometimes. At least for her. Because protecting her family had become the most important thing. Sometimes the only thing. So if that meant helping a family of honey badgers track down and kill a man who’d been hunting shifters like her husband and son for sport . . . Dez was going to do it.

The art appraiserglanced up at Dez. He had small eyes behind those glasses he wore. Small and beady. And his French accent annoyed her. She didn’t know why. When Mace had taken her to Paris for their anniversary last year, she’d loved every minute of it. God, especially the food. She almost went up a pant size eating all that great food. But this guy . . .

Maybe it was just the rude arrogance behind that French accent and those beady eyes that was annoying her. Yeah. She could see that.

“Who is that?” Anwar asked, pointing a long, thin finger at Dez.

“She is my protection,” the contact replied.

“I see.”

“You don’t expect me to walk around New York with a Matisse and not have some protection, do you?”

“If it is a Matisse,” he sneered.

Dez watched the little man work. It took hours. Seriously. Hours.

Hours of staring, of pulling out small lights and things to test as much as he could. There was some muttering about more intensive tests like X-rays or carbon dating. But he’d need help with that, and no matter how much he was being paid by Chumakov, Anwar wasn’t about to risk his reputation with legitimate museums and reputable art dealers by taking a stolen Matisse in to have it flippin’ x-rayed.

As they hit hour six, Dez began to panic. How much longer would this take? And what if he didn’t think it was a real Matisse? Then what? Dez liked Livy. She wanted her safe. She wanted all shifters safe, even the ones she didn’t like . . . her sister-in-law coming to mind.

Finally, the man stood tall and sniffed in such a way that Dez was convinced they were screwed.

He pulled out a cell phone—a different one from that phone he’d been checking all day—speed-dialed someone, and said something in what sounded like Russian. Although Dez didn’t know. She spoke English and Brooklyn-English, which involved some Spanish, and mangled Italian and Yiddish. But that was it.

With a nod at the contact, he packed up his crap and walked out without a word.

“Well?” Dez asked the contact.

The pretty girl smiled and gave a thumbs-up.

With a relieved sigh, Dez unclipped her cell phone from the holster attached to her jeans and called Vic. “It fuckin’ worked,” she said in Brooklyn-English. “I can’t believe it, but it fuckin’ worked.”

Vic put down his phone and looked at the three badgers and panda he was playing Texas Hold ’Em with at the kitchen table. Livy, Jake, Jocelyn, and Shen. He looked and said nothing.

As one, the four shifters turned and looked out the sliding-glass doors where Melly yelled into her cell phone, “You will never stop loving me! I will kill you first!” She burst into tears. “Please don’t stop loving me,” she sobbed. “Please! You motherfucker! ”